Inqlings | Scottoline plays talk-show host

Novelist

Lisa Scottoline

added newspaper columnist to her resumé seven weeks ago with her Sunday Inquirer column.

Now she adds talk-show host. At least for today. "The Big Talker" WPHT-AM (1210) is putting her on from 1 to 3 p.m. No guarantees of future employment.

"I think it's going to be just like the column - life in Philadelphia and the suburbs from a woman's perspective, entertaining, not political," Scottoline says. "Like I'm talking to my best friend on the phone." But at 50,000 watts.

Scottoline has not hosted before, though she's a frequent guest. "I'm a never-shut-up person," she says. "When you're a guest, you can't always get the thought in."

You might say

Ellen Burstyn

has made a habit of appearing in entertainment projects with religious themes. She has just been cast as Mother Superior in the set-in-1972 basketball flick

Our Lady of Victory

, which starts before the cameras at Immaculata University in two weeks. Burstyn won an Oscar nomination as the mother of the possessed

Linda Blair

in

The Exorcist

- pass the pea soup, please - and played a nun who would be a priest in

Sacrilege

on Broadway.

Carla Gugino

(

Entourage

,

Karen Sisco

) will play Mighty Macs coach

Cathy Rush

. Producers are talking to

David Boreanaz

, son of 6ABC's

Dave Roberts

, for the role of

Ed Rush

, Cathy's husband. Lots of local actors, including Agnes Irwin grad

Lauren Karl

, have been cast.

Inquirer movie critic Carrie Rickey adds that Philly has figured into at least two other nun-oriented features: The 1966 comedy The Trouble With Angels was partly shot at St. Mary's Home for Children in Ambler, and the 1977 cult movie Nasty Habits was set here.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but Fishtown's

Kristin Maszkiewicz

hopes the world thinks that Pee Wee Martini, her 2-year-old Chinese crested-Japanese chin mix, is one ugly dog. Pee Wee - whose mohawk, crooked face and floppy tongue got him notice on

Regis & Kelly

- is in the hunt for the esteemed Sonoma-Marin Fair's annual ugliest-dog contest, accessible through Pee Wee's site,

» READ MORE: www.peeweemartini.com

. He took first place last year in the ugly-mutt category but lost to a purebred. Maszkiewicz, who bought him for $1,000 at a pet store in Langhorne, says he likes pickles and ice cream.

Next time you catch a whiff of the guy next to you in the elevator, think of what happened last week at the Annenberg Center: A borrowed ramp proved too steep for horses from the Zoppe Family Circus, part of the Philadelphia International Children's Festival at Zellerbach Theatre. Solution from equestrian Tosca Zoppe and festival director Roy A. Wilbur: Send Principessa, a large Clydesdale, and Cavallino, a miniature horse, through the center's side door and let them ride the passenger elevator to stage level. No passengers were allowed to ride along, and the elevators were cleaned after every trip.

Philadelphia Weekly - now supposedly off the market after a flurry of interest and rumors - is finalist for seven awards from the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies. Only LA Weekly had more finalists (13) among large-circ pubs. Prizes will be announced in mid-June.

It's still not clear why Uma Thurman visited Berwyn on Tuesday, but at least there's a name attached to the man she was with: David Wike, a Berwyn-raised actor/filmmaker whose West Chester-shot Out There (also known as Champions) was a hit on the indie circuit last year. As I wrote the other day, Thurman had lunch incognito in a furry white hat at the Berwyn Coffee Shop, and she was last seen dangling a hand, theatrically holding a cigarette, from the window of an SUV as they drove off. I've since heard that during their dinner that night at Trattoria San Nicola in Berwyn, Thurman borrowed a lighter from a server and twice went outside for cigs. Wike's mum was mum when I asked what was up, and Thurman's rep was not sure.

Today's dining projects require a neato design touch. Beneluxx Tasting Room - on tap for late summer at 33 S. Third St. in Old City - will have tables with built-in glass rinsers. Bartender pours a few ounces of beer and wine to sample . . . sip . . . turn glass over . . . spritz . . . rinse . . . repeat. Owner

Michael Naessens

also owns the nearby Eulogy Belgian Tavern and is converting Montco's Broad Axe Tavern into a Beneluxx restaurant.

El Wingador's To-Go - the eatery at Fourth and Girard backed by five-time Wing Bowl winner Bill "El Wingador" Simmons - is dark after only four months. Sign on the door mentions a temporary closing due to "unforeseen circumstances beyond our control" and expresses a hope to "reopen soon, possibly under new management."

Back in 2004, Newtown Square's

Paul Salotto

registered alycialane.com and appointed himself president of the Unofficial

Alycia Lane

Fan Club. After the story broke of the CBS3 anchor's sending photos to the NFL Network's

Rich Eisen

, he says, site visits shot from an average of 30-plus a day to 5,400-plus a day. He has just posted a Lane publicity photo, and a challenge to help "the most gorgeous woman in TV news" find Mr. Right. He's soliciting nominations and promises to forward the top five entries to her. Good to know chivalry is

not

dead.

The Phantoms sell curios on eBay. The hockey team last week put up a

George Washington

bobblehead (a giveaway sponsored by the National Constitution Center on Feb. 18, 2004) and, in a historic pairing, is selling it with a potato chip that resembles Washington's profile. (What's that saying about GW and the Phantoms - "first in war, first in peace, sixth in the American Hockey League's East Division"?) PR chief

Mike Thornton

found it in a bag of Utz's during a recent lunch. The eBay listing straightforwardly explains that "the chip measures nearly three inches high and has zero grams of trans fat." Darned if people aren't bidding. Friday it was up to $20.51, plus $4 shipping; sale closes this afternoon.